cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7671573
Sweden knew Canada’s Marc Kennedy was a notorious cheater.
So they set up a camera at the ‘hog line’ to record it.
And caught him doing it at the Olympics.
cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7671573
Sweden knew Canada’s Marc Kennedy was a notorious cheater.
So they set up a camera at the ‘hog line’ to record it.
And caught him doing it at the Olympics.
For anyone struggling with why this is a big deal* it’s like if you were playing billiards and nudged the ball after you made the shot because you didn’t like the angle of the shot, it kind of ruins the whole point
* lol, I mean, for curling at least
…if said billiard ball weighed 40 lbs.
A little finger poke ain’t gonna do shit.
But, the rules are the rules.
And yet they risked getting caught breaking one of the major rules to do it. Why take that risk if doing it had no effect?
Check out the article I shared - many high-level curlers don’t consider it an infraction at all, let alone a major one. Even Oskar Eriksson, who made the original accusation, doesn’t seem to think it’s exclusive to Team Canada:
It’s a dumb thing to do, though, and I’d be happy if people cleaned up their acts across the board.
the primary method of playing the game involves melting a microscopic layer of ice to alter the trajectory of the 40lbs rock….
a slight drag will prevent over -rotation of the stone.
Regardless, it’s a fucking rule.
I have said several time that I have no problem with the rule being enforced.
I really don’t think so, especially the light touch that I’ve seen on video (which, to be fair, was Homan’s throw on the women’s side). Again, these things are damn heavy, and you’re not going to push them around with a finger without making a visible effort.
A tiny finger poke makes a ton of difference apparently, which is precisely why it’s forbidden. You’ve got a 45 meter long track, small adjustments matter a lot. Though honestly I cannot believe I am letting myself getting worked up over fucking curling.
I guess it’s just the reaction to people cheating at the highest competitive levels and then have the gall to be fucking abrasive assholes about it.
Having curled myself, I can assure you it does not…and if it did make a difference, it would almost certainly be negative, since you’re giving up any semblance of control that you had on the actual throw. There’s not going to be some “precision poke” that magically steers it where it needs to go. But don’t take my word for it.
But as I said, the rules are the rules, and I don’t think it’s wrong to enforce them.
This is a fun little physics problem.
The CoF of a curling stone on ice appears to be between .006 and .016 depending on fast its sliding.
So with a CoF of .006 that 40lb chunk of granite has an effective weight of just four ounces relative to that same chunk of granite at a CoF of 1. With a CoF of .016 it’s relative weight is 9 ounces.
So if the finger brush is in either the X or Y axis then basically anything more than what it takes to press a key on your keyboard will have an effect.
Trying to stop the stone from rotating is a whole different matter because then you’re working against it’s stored inertia and that will be much much higher. No way to calculate that though unless you know it’s rate of spin.
I appreciate you finding that article - interesting one.
I’m very much amateur curler, and can’t see how that tiny touch would impact it, but maybe it does at that level of competition.
Using a perfect shot to stop on the button with no spin, and energy= all kinetic (1/2mv2) =friction energy(F*deltaX), we get a release speed of 1.8m/s (with a .006 coefficient), and a 2.98m/s speed (with a 0.016 coefficient).
Using the same equation, I go ahead and rerun the number, but adding a distance of 0.1m, a value I used as a good approximation of a reliable accuracy of an Olympic throw, and a time of 0.2s (the approximate time I estimated based on the video), which means a deltaX2 of 0.36m, or 0.596m.
1/2mv2+fapplieddeltaX2 = ffrictiondeltaX Fapplied comes out to 0.326N to 0.526N which is a miniscule amount.
That seems to indicate that a tiny touch DOES have the potential to make a significant difference. Some sources say 0.25 to 0.5N is required for a keyboard press, so its roughly on par with that
But, how much of a difference does the sweeping make on stone speed? Its easy to say that tiny change can impact things, but how does it compare to, say, sweeping hard vs not sweeping?
This study shows a sweeping change of 45+/-8mm. Thus a change of 25% on top of that is not insignificant.
So the last question is, does it make sense for someone to train specifically by cheating this way rather than doing it right and just pushing off with a more accurate force? That’s likely going to be subjective, but seems difficult to me.
Who knows, maybe this is a crutch and it is making a difference. Sounds like they need to stop doing it any case, whether a way they’ve trained or not. Or wear a camera showing they don’t touch the rock and just hover their finger behind it.
It’s strange then how this is a common strategy among cheaters in curling, and that it is exactly what the Canadian team is known for, and it is illegal to do for precisely that reason.
I’ve been watching the curling through these Olympics, and after this was done there were reports that other nations teams also have claimed to have done this before, and that they don’t think it requires extreme policing like the Swedish team suggested. The latter half of their argument led me to believe it happens a lot more than we knew before this incident and they’d rather this not become a constant issue. Sounds like the Swedish team has been trying to accuse the Canadian team of this for a few years now, and have gotten a reputation internationally about it as sore losers.
So it’s only “what the Canadian team is known for” because of the swearing response, and the fact it was broadcast everywhere after Swedish media blew up about it, and why they only had umpires watching as of the next day. It seems like the rest of the world doesn’t care about this, and is more upset about the aggressive response (which I think everyone can agree with)
Very confidently stated, but I really don’t think it is.
It’s illegal because it’s way simpler to implement a “no touching” rule than to try to define game-changing and non game-changing touches in a way that would be enforceable.
And again, I have absolutely no problem with the rule being enforced, even though I don’t think for a hot second that it impacted the game.
dude…people do this when they over-rotate the stone after letting go of the handle. It’s not about steering or momentum forward. a slight drag will reduce the rotation.
There is no reason to be pointing a finger on release.
I would love to see someone go to a curling rink and demonstrate this this is remotely possible.
I completely agree. There is absolutely no reason to do it, because there is no chance it will do anything.
I can’t imagine why people think it wouldn’t have an effect. This is a sport where brooms have an effect. Why wouldn’t a push have an effect? And if it had no effect why do they do it?
The brooms affect the ice in front of the rock, which changes the rock’s behaviour as it moves over the swept patch. You have to exert quite a bit of force to push the rock directly.
Sometimes by accident, I’m sure. And probably more relevant, sometimes out of sheer laziness.
Ah let’s be honest here… That was neither laziness nor accidental.
Look, I find extending a finger to give the stone a boop after release completely baffling…but there’s no chance at all that it affected the trajectory of the thing. You might as well “cheat” by blowing on it.
Accident? He’s done it multiple times. The women’s team did it too.
Yeah, as the article I linked indicated, a lot of players simply don’t consider it an infraction, and therefore don’t give a damn whether they do it.
And for probably the fifth time, I have no problem with the rule being enforced.
I think he thought the boop was going to do something. It was entirely deliberate. The guy clearly cheated.
Alright. If you are gonna argue that was an accident then you just aren’t someone worth discussing things with. My god…
Insinuating that everyone always performs perfectly at the Olympics? I just watched a woman cry because she only landed a double-spin instead of a triple during the figure skating competiton. I supposed she didn’t land her jump on purpose too?
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t believe he accidentally touched the rock, but I am shocked you find it so unbelievable that someone could be so focused on where their rock is going that they didn’t pay enough attention to how their hand was positioned after they let go of the rock. High pressure situations create surprising mistakes.
Probably cuz he’s done more than once while he’s been at the olympics? Do you think that could be why I thought that?
Having been the one to originally use the word “accident,” I should probably amend that to “habitual.” A bad habit that people generally don’t call, that the Swedish team doesn’t appreciate (and is technically correct about).